Terribly sorry I haven't written in a while. Higher level classes in college are taking up more time.
Sakura swallowed, trying to hide her uneasiness.
It didn't help. Her throat still itched and her mouth was as dry as parchment. Her heart, beating a million miles a minute, felt like it was going to explode.
None of it came from her seeing her sensei without the black mask that covered half his face. Sakura had actually seen it once before. Kakashi never explained how he had managed to break three of his teeth, but Sakura asked no questions, although she figured it came from one of Gai-sensei's ridiculous challenges. She was used to her silver haired sensei slipping through her windows with varying injuries at odd hours of the day.
Kakashi's hatred of hospital's was legendary and Sakura would rather he woke her up at four in the morning with his guts spilling out of his stomach than to have him not seek medical attention. So she didn't pry as she fixed his teeth.
And she never let Naruto know that she had seen their sensei without his mask.
As it was, Sakura wished he was wearing it now. Naruto's ogling aside, she didn't want to see Kakashi's face. Not when he was going to find out everything. That they had not brought Sasuke with them; to the past or on this rescue mission.
Disappoint that was normally only visible in the furrowing of the eyebrow and the expression in his one eye would be worse now that nothing was hidden.
Would the corners of his mouth turn down like his eyebrow did? Would Kakashi's lips thin in displeasure? Or would he pull the scary aura card while pretending to be cheerful?
Sakura shivered at the image of Kakashi smiling widely at them while a black and white ghostly image of him raged and scolded them over his shoulder. Personally, she thought that would be the worst one.
The pinkette looked at her teammate from the corner of her eye. The three teenagers were walking between Kakashi and Tsunade, and Kami if seeing her shishou alive, healthy, and young didn't bring back memories. Temari was in the middle, with the Jinchuuriki to her right.
Naruto was cradling his head with his hands behind it, looking for all the elemental nations like he was casually strolling down the street to Ichiraku's and not through one of Orochimaru's hideouts that they had just razed to the ground.
It had been one of the many they had searched looking for Sasuke. In all honesty, Sakura didn't remember this one particularly well. It had been just another dead end in their fruitless chase. The base had been empty the first time they found it. Completely devoid of life, left behind experiments, or anything that would have proved Orochimaru was there at one point.
It was good luck on their part that they had known where this base was. Actually, it was fantastically good luck. Too good to be true.
The strawberry haired girl had known that the time travelers' good luck would not last. All too soon would the time come when their presence in the past brought about changes even Shikamaru couldn't predict.
And it had. The world came crashing down around them. Temari had been kidnapped. Then they found Tsunade and Kakashi with her.
The future was changing. Too fast and too soon. Soon it would be unrecognizable. Then the five of them might as well be gennin again, drowning, in over their heads in matters that had been brewing since before they were born.
One glance at Naruto told her that he knew the truth. They had been stupidly trapped in a cage of their own making.
Now they would have to come clean.
And it would not be pretty.
'No, definitely not pretty,' Sakura thought, as Gaara and Shikamaru came barreling down the tunnel with an unconscious Shizune being carried by the to-be-Kazekage's sand, seeing the way Kakashi's face had hardened.
Naruto watched, grinning stupidly, as Shikamaru threw himself at the Suna kunoichi. It had been several years, since he had witnessed the genius asking Gaara for permission to marry her, that the blonde had seen him so uncomposed. The gritty and bloody details of the war had barely drawn a sigh of troublesome from his lips by the end, but Temari had dug her nails in and cracked open his shell. Only she could bring forth such a reaction in Naruto's strategist.
And while the blonde was overjoyed that Temari was safe, watching their reunion only made it obvious how alone he was, reminded Naruto that his love was a twelve year old girl that couldn't be in the same training grounds as him without fainting.
"Now that we're all reunited, perhaps we could keep moving?"
Naruto flinched at Kakashi's light question. That was the tone he used before a dressing down whenever the blonde had done something monumentally stupid. Like the time he had let that team of shinobi from Kumo beat him up for information on Sasuke.
His sensei had said it was an idiotic move. The Kumo ninja had been looking for somebody to take the brunt of their rage and Naruto had offered himself up on a silver platter to no end, because the team had sprinted away upon hearing Sasuke was rumored to be somewhere in Lightning Country still.
Kakashi had reamed him out for that, reminding Naruto that Sasuke was no longer his responsibility, nor was he ever, and that he could not volunteer to be a punching bag to every irate shinobi that felt he or she had been wronged.
"I'm sure, Naruto and Sakura, that you'll have a wonderful explanation once we're in a safe location?"
Naruto subtly moved away from his sensei, hiding behind Shikamaru, who had taken his spot next to Temari when he and Gaara had rejoined them.
Kakashi was going to kill them.
Reaching the surface had been easy.
Kabuto had run, like the non-confrontational bastard that he was, as soon as he realized the base was under attack. To the standard the time travelers had come to expect from the spy, he did not stay unless he could get something out of it. And he saw nothing to be gained by staying and facing them.
The many freaks that Orochimaru found or made posed no threat. With five people from the future, Kakashi of the Sharingan, and one of the Legendary Sannin, they were overpowered with great ease.
The conversation that followed the second Tsunade called for a rest so she could check on both Temari and Shizune was not so easy.
Their sensei had dug a hand into Naruto's and Sakura's shoulders and guided the pair a few feet away. Close enough to still be in view of the rest of the group but far enough to not be over heard so long as they were not shouting at the top of their lungs.
"What are you two doing here? You're supposed to be with Yamato." He hissed.
Sakura tugged her bottom lip into her mouth, letting Naruto answer. "We had to rescue Temari. And we couldn't leave Baa-chan behind!"
Kakashi looked momentarily bewildered by the blonde's endearment. Naruto had originally started calling Tsunade by Baa-chan when he was an ignorant and overly familiar boy. Eventually it had become an affectionate nickname for the woman he viewed as a mix between mother and Hokage.
The silver haired jounin tightly pinched the bridge off his nose, wondering if his student was being deliberately obtuse. Before the chuunin exams, Kakashi would have believed Naruto to be entirely honest in that answer. But the too relieved look in his eyes and the slightly relaxed but nevertheless tense body the relayed a readiness for offense or defense.
Not to mention he couldn't understand how the bond between his students and the kunoichi from Suna could be strong enough for Naruto and Sakura to risk charges from incompliance to treason when they had only met at the chuunin exams.
"And how did you know your friend was in trouble?" Kakashi decided to change tactics. If they wouldn't tell him outright why they had left the village in search of the girl he would read between the lines of what they would tell him. Kakashi was better than most jounin at looking underneath the underneath.
Naruto shrugged. "Knew about it almost immediately. I was standing outside the Old Man's office when a chuunin brought him the message."
'He knew about it immediately alright. But before the Hokage did. He would have never let three of his gennin scour the country for one missing girl, Kazekage's daughter or not," thought Kakashi. And Sakura appeared to know how Naruto received that information, because she was still chewing on her lips; a tick of hers whenever she was nervous.
"I see." He said calmly, watching as the slight furrowing of the pinkette's eyebrows slackened and Naruto's shoulders slumped infinitesimally. "Now the truth."
Blue eyes, just like Minato's met with emerald ones. Kakashi observed as the duo seemed to hold a silent conversation, one's orbs occasionally darting to the side to look at the other three members of their rescue party.
The conversation continued for several minutes and Kakashi was prepared to make his demand a second time. Judging by the resigned sigh Sakura gave, her blonde teammate must have been the victor of their debate.
"What would you say if I told you I could see the future?" Naruto asked boldly.
Kakashi blinked once. Seeing that his student still bore a serious face, he dug a pinkie into his ear, only to find no wax. "You mean to tell me that you can see the future?"
Naruto firmly nodded. "I don't believe it. There is no way to see the future."
"It could be a kekkei genkai," Sakura said, offhandedly.
Kakashi gave her the beady eye for a second. "His parents showed no sign of such an ability. It does not exist."
"Then you would believe that we traveled back in time."
"Why would I? Do you realize how insane you sound?"
"It's not insane at all. My father could manipulate time and space. Why can't I?"
The words from his student were so collected and logical that it took Kakashi a minute to process what he had said. Naruto knew who his father was. How could he? The Third Hokage had never let anyone know Naruto's true parentage. Minato and Kushina had taken extreme caution when she was pregnant. Hardly anyone knew her baby was Minato's.
'Could he really be telling the truth? Could they be from the future?' Kakashi shook his head, dismissing the thoughts as preposterous. He had caught the change from 'I' to 'we.' But it was impossible. Five people simply could not have come back in time.
"What if I show you a jutsu?" Naruto offered. "One of my dad's. Would that be proof enough for you?"
Kakashi nodded numbly. Minato kept his prized jutsus close to his chest. His sensei had never taught him his Rasengan or Flying Thuder God techniques. Kakashi only knew of one person who could pull of the former.
There was another silent conversation between Sakura and Naruto, though brief this time. Then Naruto's eye changed from blue to gold, gaining a horizontal pupil characteristic of toads, and orange shaded his eyelids.
Before his eyes, Kakashi watched as chakra compressed in the palm of his student's hand, becoming visible as a swirling ball of chakra. Then that chakra started extended beyond the sphere until it resembled the shape of a shuriken spinning around it.
The whistling from the jutsu caused Shikamaru, Gaara, Temari, and Tsunade to glance over. The first three returned to the conversation they were having, wholly unconcerned by Naruto's amazing feat, while the last gaped at the boy.
Only Kakashi's years of experience as a shinobi and training to not move and possible give away his position kept him from seeking support from a tree when Naruto threw the jutsu like it was a metal shuriken.
Naruto's Rasengan ripped through trees, whistling as it went, until there was nearly a mile stretch of trees cut down near the base.
Kakashi had seen Jiraiya use this jutsu before. But it had not looked like the one Naruto just made.
"I believe you," he said faintly.
And he truly did. There was no way Naruto could have learned that jutsu from anyway but the Toad Sage. And considering that he had entered Sage Mode before using it and the fact that Jiraiya had not been in the village since Minato died, Jiraiya could not have taught it to him yet.
And Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru being from the future explain so many changes in mannerism that he and Asuma had witnessed in them during the chuunin exams. 'No wonder he and Sasuke stopped fighting like Konoha and Iwa during the Third Great Shinobi War,' he mused.
"How? Why?"
He received heavy sighs from both his students. Masks he had not known they were wearing dropped and suddenly he could see the war hardened and world weary adults they would grow to be.
It was a long story, starting with the First Hokage and his best friend, Madara Uchiha. Madara had grown envious of Hashirama and then hateful when it was Hashirama and not himself chosen to be Hokage. The story told of brothers killed, or Madara's breaking away. It spoke of betrayl: Madara's, Danzou's, and Sasuke's. How the Uchiha Massacre was a cover up for the Uchiha's coup de' tat and that Itachi was not a criminal but a hero. A tale of revenge that spanned generations of Uchiha over a century and how their lust for power, for the Mangekyou, drove them insane.
To the point that Sasuke believed with his whole heart that the entire world deserved to suffer as the Uchiha clan did. He systematically proceeded to destroy the elemental nations until he was defeated by Naruto.
Kakashi listened silently, absorbing everything his two students shared. For a long while he said nothing. "Why didn't Sasuke return as well?"
"We couldn't trust him. He was unstable."
The jounin clenched his jaw. That was understandable. A twelve year old Sasuke that had almost singlehandedly destroyed everything was not someone he wanted to convince to not seek revenge. But . . .
"And why didn't you bring him along to rescue the girl? Surely you could have feed him the same lie you gave me."
"Sasuke wouldn't have believed that tripe." Sakura snorted. "And could you imagine us telling him were from the future? He would tell us to stop dreaming and spend more time training."
"And what are you doing to do if he confronts you?"
"We will tell him everything." Naruto said staidly. "But only if he comes to us first."